Vol. 5 · pages 116–120

101 THE HINDU AND HIS BELIEF IN CASTE facts, it is obvious that the construction sought to be placed in the verse in the Manu Smriti will not deceive the orthodox Hindu into accepting that the maintenance of untouchability is contrary to the Manu Smriti and that its abolition is not therefore contrary to the tenets of the Hindu religion. The argument based on the interpretation of Manu’s text is too intellectual for the ordinary uneducated Hindu. He knows only two things. One thing he knows is that there are three barriers in the matter of social intercourse which he must observe. They are (1) prohibition against inter-dining, (2) prohibition against inter-marriage, while in untouchability there is third barrier added and (3) prohibition against physically touching certain class of people. The first two barriers make up the caste. The third forms untouchability. The caste Hindu does not bother about the number of barriers. He is particular about the observance of the barrier. When he is asked not to observe, he turns round and asks why not? His argument is that, if I am free to observe the first two barriers, what is wrong if I observe the third? Psychologically, caste and untouchability are one integral system based on one and the same principle. If the caste Hindus observe untouchability it is because they believe in caste. Looked at from this point of view, the idea of hoping to remove untouchability without destroying the caste system is an utter futility. The underlying idea that caste and untouchability are two different things is founded on a fallacy. The two are one and are inseparable. Untouchability is only an extension of the caste system. There can be no severence between the two. The two stand together and will fall together. There is another reason why untouchability cannot disappear by a stratagem, legal or rational. As has already been pointed out, the Hindu social order is based on the principle of graded inequality. It may not be an exaggeration to say that not many people understand the significance of this principle. The social system based on inequality stands on a different footing from a social system based on graded inequality. The former is a weak system which is not capable of self-preservation. The latter on the other hand, is capable of self-preservation. In a social system based on inequality, the low orders can combine to overthrow the system. None of them have any interest to preserve it. In a social system based on graded inequality the possibility of a general common attack by the aggrieved parties is nonexistent. In a system of graded inequality, the aggrieved parties are not on a common level. This can happen only when they are only high and low. In the system of graded inequality there are the highest (the Brahmins). Below the highest are the higher (the Kshatriyas). Below the higher are those who are high (Vaishya). Below the high are the low (Shudra) and below the low are those who are lower (the

102 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Untouchables). All have a grievance against the highest and would like to bring about their down fall. But they will not combine. The higher is anxious to get rid of the highest but does not wish to combine with the high, the low and the lower lest they should reach his level and be his equal. The high wants to over-throw the higher who is above him but does not want to join hands with the low and the lower, lest they should rise to his status and become equal to him in rank. The low is anxious to pull down the highest, the higher and the high but he would not make a common cause with the lower for fear of the lower gaining a higher status and becoming his equal. In the system of graded inequality there is no such class as completely unprivileged class except the one which is at the base of the social pyramid. The privileges of the rest are graded. Even the low is a privileged class as compared with the lower. Each class being privileged, every class is interested in maintaining the social system. Untouchability may be a misfortune to the Untouchables. But there is no doubt that it is a good fortune to the Hindus. It gives them a class which they can look down upon. The Hindus do not want a system in which nobody will be anybody. They also do not want a system in which everybody may be somebody. They want a system in which they will be somebodies and others will be nobodies. The Untouchables are nobodies. This makes the Hindus some bodies. The system of untouchability sustains the natural pride of the Hindus and make them feel as well as look big. This is an additional reason why the Hindus are not likely to give up untouchability particularly those large majority who are small men. Untouchability will vanish only when the whole of the Hindu Social Order, particularly the caste system will be dissolved. Is this possible? Every institution is sustained by some sort of a sanction. There are three kinds of sanction which supply life-force to an institution. They are legal, social and religious. The vitality of the institution depends upon the nature of the sanction. What is the nature of the sanction behind the caste system? Unfortunatley, the sanction behind the caste system is the religious sanction, for, the caste as a new form of the Varna system derives its sanction from the Vedas which form the sacred book of the Hindu religion and which are infallible. I say unfortunately because anything which has a religious sanction becomes by virtue of it sacred and eternal. To the Hindu, caste is sacred and caste is eternal. If caste cannot vanish what hope is there for untouchability to disappear? zz

PART IV What the Untouchables have to face CHAPTER 12 ANTAGONISM OF THE ADMINISTRATION Section 2 of the Indian Penal Code reads as follows: “ Every person shall be liable to punishment under this Code and not otherwise for every act or omission contrary to the provisions thereof, of which he shall be guilty within British India.” The Law Commissioners who prepared the draft Penal Code in their address to the Secretary of State thought it necessary to draw pointed attention to the words ‘Every Person’. In the course of their observation, they said: “Your Lordship in Council will see that we have not proposed to except from the operation of this Code any of the ancient sovereign houses of India residing within the Company’s territories. Whether any such exception ought to be made is a question which, without a more accurate knowledge that we possess of existing treaties, of the sense in which those treaties have been understood, of the history of negotiations, of the temper and of the power of particular families, and of the feeling of the body of the people towards those families, we could not venture to decide. We will only beg permission most respectfully to observe that every such exception is an evil; that is an evil that any man should be above the law; that it is still greater evil that the public should be taught to regard as a high and enviable distinction the privilege of being above the law; that the longer such privileges are suffered to last, the more difficult it is to take them away; that there can scarcely even be a fairer opportunity for taking them away than at the time when the Government promulgates a new Code binding alike on persons of different races and religions; and that we greatly doubt whether any consideration, except that of public faith solemnly pledged, deserves to be weighed against the advantages of equal justice.” It might have been thought that this principle of equal justice would strike a death blow to the Established Order. As a matter of fact, far from suffering any damage the Established Order has continued to

104 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES operate in spite of it. It might be asked why the principle of equal justice has failed to have its effect. The answer to this is simple. To enunciate the principle of justice is one thing. To make it effective is another thing. Whether the principle of equal justice is effective or not must necessarily depend upon the nature and character of the civil services who must be left to administer the principle. If the civil service is by reason of its class bias the friend of the Established Order and the enemy of the new Order, the new Order can never come into being. That a civil service in tune with the new order was essential for the success of the new order was recognized by Karl Marx in 1871 in the formation of the Paris Commune and adopted by Lenin in the constitution of Soviet Communism. Unfortunately, the British Government never cared about the personnel of the Civil Service. Indeed it opened the gates of the administration to those classes who believed in the old Established Order of the Hindus in which the principle of equality had no place. As a result of this fact, India has been ruled by the British but administered by the Hindus. A few statistics of the composition of the Civil Service will fullydemonstrate this fact. From the capital of India down to the village the whole administration is rigged by the Hindus. The Hindus are like the omnipotent almighty pervading all over the administration in all its branches having its authority in all its nooks and corners. There is no loophole for anyone opposed to the old order to escape. No matter what the Department, whether it is Revenue, Police or Justice it is manned by the Hindu. If the Established Order has continued to exist, it is because of the unfailing support it received from the Hindu officials of the State. The Hindu officials are not merely administering the affairs on their merit. They are administering them with an eye to the parties. Their principle is not equal justice to all. Their motto is justice consistent with the Established Order. This is inevitable. For they carry over into administration the attitude towards different classes in society under the Established Order. This is well illustrated by the attitude of the State officials towards the Untouchables in the field of administration. As every Untouchable will be able to testify, if an Untouchable goes to a police officer with a complaint against the caste Hindu, instead of receiving any protection he will receive plenty of abuses. Either he will be driven away without his complaint being recorded or if it is recorded, it would be recorded quite falsely to provide a way of escape to the Touchable aggressors. If he prosecutes his offenders before a Magistrate the fate of his proceedings could be foretold. The

105 ANTAGONISM OF THE ADMINISTRATION Untouchables will never be able to get Hindus as witnesses because of the conspiracy of the villagers not to support the case of the Untouchables, however just it may be. If he brings witnesses from the Untouchables, the Magistrate will not accept their testimony because he can easily say that they are interested and not independent witnesses, or, if they are independent witnesses the Magistrate has an easy way of acquitting the accused by simply saying that the Untouchables compliment did not strike him as a truthful witness. He can do this fearlessly knowing full well that the higher tribunal will not reverse his finding because of the well-established rule which says that an appellate court should not disturb the finding of the trial Magistrate based upon the testimony of witness whose demeanour he had no opportunity to observe: That such a discrimination is practised has now been admitted even by Congressmen. The annual Report of the Tamil Nad Harijan Sevak Sangh for the year ending September 30, 1937 says 1: “The political consciousness of the Harijans having been roused by the rights in the remotest villages where it is only the policeman that reign, it is not always possible for the Harijan to do this, for the assertion of his rights means a clash between him and the castemen, in which it is always the latter that have the upper hand. The natural consequences of this scuffle is a complaint either to the police or the Magistrate. The latter course is beyond the means of a Harijan while the former resort is worse than useless. The complaints are in many cases not inquired into at all, while in others a verdict favourable to the castemen is entered. Our complaints to the Police also meet with similar fate. The trouble seems to us to be that there is no change in the mentality of the lower policeman. Either he is unaware of the rights of the Harijans of which he is supposed to be the guardian or he is influenced by caste men. Or, it may also be that he is absolutely indifferent. In other cases, corruption is responsible for his taking the side of the richer caste men.” This shows how the Hindu official is anti-Untouchable and pro-Hindu. Whenever he has any authority or discretion, it is always exercised to the prejudice of the Untouchables. The police and the Magistrate are sometimes corrupt. If they were only corrupt, things would not perhaps be so bad because an officer who is corrupt is open to purchase by either party. But the misfortune is that the Police and Magistrates are often more partial than corrupt. It is this partiality to the Hindus and his antipathy to the Untouchables 1 See ‘Hindu’ of March 7. 1938.